A recent Monday, 2:10 p.m.: Thomas "Red" McGarvey started playing golf three times a week after he retired from his day job nearly 20 years ago. After a lifetime dedicated to the San Francisco business he and brother Mike McGarvey owned, Red's Java House, golf was the thing he looked forward to most.

Then one day two years ago, the day after playing a vigorous nine holes, he couldn't get out of bed because of a slipped disc that affected the nerves running to his right leg. After back surgery and a month of hospital care, he still could barely walk.

"I couldn't stand on my right foot," McGarvey said. "I thought I was going in the wheelchair, but I'm a stubborn, cranky old guy. So I said to myself, 'This ain't gonna beat me.' "

As soon as he got home from the hospital, he started taking his walker down the street in the Lakeside neighborhood. He became familiar with every crack and bump in the sidewalk as he dragged his lame leg behind him.

The first year was tough, he said, but his relentless efforts paid off. Now, twice a day, rain or shine, McGarvey makes the rounds.

In the morning he heads down Lagunitas Drive toward Ocean Avenue, then cuts over on a tree-lined street to Sloat Boulevard before rounding back onto Lagunitas. In the afternoon he takes the half-mile course in reverse.

He's abandoned the walker. The only concession he makes to the injury is his black cane.

He waves to neighbors as he passes and receives handshakes from the postal carrier. In the Lakeside, where he's lived for 44 years, just about everyone knows him.

"To be honest," said McGarvey, 85, "I'm considered the mayor of the block."

McGarvey is a San Francisco native who has never doubted his ability to succeed when times get tough.

He and his four siblings were born to poor Irish immigrants. He sold newspapers for 3 cents apiece after school. All his profits went into the family till.

When he was 12, his mother died, and his father decided that working and caring for five children wasn't an option. McGarvey and his siblings wound up in foster care.

In 1942, after running away from various foster homes, McGarvey managed to join the merchant marine at age 15, and sailed around the globe. After a decade of that, he was ready to come home.

With his brother Mike, he bought a coffee shack along the waterfront, named it Red's - Tom McGarvey was a redhead - and for the next four decades thrived on the java house's popularity with hungry longshoremen who were also looking for a pre-shift jolt of caffeine.

When cargo-shipping operations left for Oakland in the early 1970s, Red's almost met its end. But the McGarvey brothers refashioned it for a broader range of locals and the tourist trade, and now its future seems secure. The Golden State Warriors are even ready to carve out a spot for Red's and its current owners at the team's proposed arena site at Piers 30-32.

Red's strength is a legacy of the McGarvey brothers' philosophy, as laid out by Tom himself: "If you want to be successful, you have to work real hard and always be nice to people."

Mike McGarvey has passed, but Tom - even with Red's long behind him - keeps the spirit of San Francisco alive, one therapeutic walk at a time.